The Animal and Tissue Core (ATC) will provide technical and personnel support for facilitating, standardizing, and implementing the collection, management and analysis of tissue samples. The ATC will support investigators by providing animals pretreated for individual experiments, collecting tissue samples and performing standardized testing and data management (record keeping). This Core Facility will serve all investigators who will be needing assistance with (1) animal care and treatments, (2) collection of tissue and/or body fluid, (3) cell and tissue culture methods, (4) standardized testing for assessment of the development and progression of arthritis, and (5) histological evaluation of tissue sample. The ATC intends to aid each project by providing technical, instrumental and personnel support which are (i) commonly used by several projects or (ii) occasionally used by investigators but require special technical or safety regulations or (iii) require special equipment or technical expertise. The ACT facility, based one the expected demands of the this application, will consist of three units. The Animal Care Core Unit will collect human cartilage, prepare antigens for immunization, and immunize animals according to the needs of the investigators. Thus, this Unit will serve all projects with pre-arthritic and/or arthritic animals. The Tissue Appropriation and Histology unit will be responsible for sample storage, record keeping and data management, and performing histological evaluation of the skeletal tissues with their appropriate test records (data collected from the other two Core Units and the individual research Projects). Thus, this Core facility will help investigators collect tissues for specialized analysis, perform histology tests, and store tissue samples for further analyses. The Cell and Tissue Culture Core Unit will standardize and perform tests required by the different projects, measure serum antibody levels (B-cell response) and test cytokine response by antigen/mitogen stimulated spleen cells (T-cell activity). Thus, this Core Unit will perform tests most appropriate for the individual needs of the projects. Since many of these techniques frequently require combinations of different methods and protocols, we intend to centralize these three Core Units into one Core facility directed and coordinated by one person, to guarantee the most effective and efficient integration of research approaches.